Ultraseven Ep. 26: Super Weapon R1

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Toshitsugu Suzuki. Written by Bunzo Wakatsuki. Airdate March 31, 1968.

The Cold War and fears of nuclear war lurk behind much of tokusatsu, especially in the Showa era. The movie that ignited the tokusatsu genre, Godzilla, is the quintessential cinematic nuclear metaphor, and Japan is the nation most acutely aware of the horrors of nuclear weapons as “deterrents.” The specter of the Cold War haunts many of Ultraseven’s tales of alien invaders. In “Super Weapon R1,” the subtext of the madness of the arms race becomes the text, the explicitly stated theme. This could’ve turned out heavy-handed. Here, it all works, resulting in one of the great and enduring Ultra episodes.

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Ultraman Tiga Ep. 18: Golza Strikes Back!

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Shinichi Kamizawa. Written by Masakazu Migita. Airdate Jan. 4, 1997.

Ultra shows generally treat the impact of kaiju activity on the civilian population with a light hand. That’s appropriate, since the episodes would otherwise make for extremely dour entertainment, and many child viewers would have nightmares until they graduated high school. Doing something with the heaviness of the original Godzilla or Godzilla Minus One isn’t what Tsuburaya Productions was looking to achieve. 

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The Ultra Project: Year One

~ Ryan Harvey

It was a year ago that I took The Ultra Project live, announcing to the internet my creation of a website providing episode-by-episode reviews of the Japanese Ultra series. I’d already spent two months working on the site, writing the first batch of reviews, then doing a soft launch in late August. It wasn’t until after I posted the first Ultraseven episode review that I was ready to unveil the site to the, uhm, eager public.

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Ultraman Ep. 29: Challenge to the Underground

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Samaji Nonagase. Written by Tetsuo Kinjo and Ryu Minamikawa. Airdate Jan. 29, 1967.

After a string of great episodes, Ultraman was due for something on the routine side. When Goldon, a gold-consuming monster, bursts from the side of Mt. Otayama only seconds into the episode, it signals that “Challenge to the Underground” is going to be fairly standard monster-centric material. Which it is, but the average Ultraman episode is still a decent time.

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Ultraseven Ep. 25: Showdown at 140 Degrees Below Zero

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Kazuho Mitsuta. Written by Tetsuo Kinjo. Airdate March 24, 1968.

An intense cold snap and snow storm descend on the HQ of the Terran Defense Force. Temperatures plunge below –100°F and keep dropping. Ultra Guard member Soga isn’t concerned at first, talking dismissively as he pours a cup of coffee: “A cold wave zone 114 degrees below zero is nothing to get nervous about. The atomic reactor in the power house 18 floors under is burning red. Praise human technology.” 

The moment Soga says this, viewers know everything is about to go wrong in the worst way. The episode does not disappoint. 

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Ultraman Ep. 28: Human Specimens 5 & 6

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Samaji Nonagase. Written by Masahiro Yamada. Airdate Jan. 22, 1967.

Samaji Nonagase was one of the more prolific early Ultra directors. While he doesn’t receive as much attention as fan-favorite directors Akio Jissoji and Kazuho Mitsuta, he helmed several classic episodes: “Kanegon’s Cocoon” (Ultra Q), “The Monster Anarchy Zone” (Ultraman), and “The Secret of the Lake” (Ultraseven). He also wrote scripts under the pen name Ryu Minamikawa. He was fascinated by Alfred Hitchcock and liked to add gradually building tension to some of his episodes, such as the home-invasion story of “Project Blue.” “Human Specimen 5 & 6” is Nonagase’s best exploration of the suspense-centered story, and it helped to establish the future tone of Ultraseven and its parade of weird, crafty alien invaders.

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Monster Theater: The Giant Claw (1957)

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Fred F. Sears. Written by Paul Gangelin and Sam Newman. Starring Jeff Morrow, Mara Corday, Morris Ankrum.

In these movie breaks, I’ve so far looked at monster films from Japan and the UK. It’s time to pay a visit to the B-movie factories of 1950s Hollywood, the original laboratories where the giant monster craze was spawned and mutated. I grew up on these movies on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, seeing many of them before I saw my first Godzilla movie. I still have immense love for them, their often corny earnestness, and their peculiar cultural zeitgeist of the anxiety-ridden 1950s.

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Ultraseven Ep. 24: Return to the North!

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Kazuho Mitsuta. Written by Shinichi Ichikawa. Airdate March 17, 1968.

It’s rare to have an Ultraseven episode focused on a drama about an individual Ultra Guard member. There are occasional shows that let a particular character take the spotlight, such as “Search for Tomorrow,” which put Captain Kiriyama in conflict with his own team. But “Return to the North!” goes further: it examines the personal life of a member outside of the Ultra Guard. Surprisingly, the UG member picked for the starring role is Shigeru Furuhashi, the team’s “shoot first” action guy. 

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Ultraman Tiga Ep. 17: The Battle Between Red and Blue

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Shinichi Kamizawa. Written by Hidenori Miyazawa and Shinichi Kamizawa. Airdate Dec. 28, 1996.

I have affection for the offbeat Ultra episodes: the ones that take unexpected trips to different genres or spotlight a quirky new character as protagonist of the week. Some of these episodes are among the best in the history of the franchise, such as “Kanegon’s Cocoon” and “The Monster Tamer and the Boy.” Others, like “The Battle Between Red and Blue,” are merely charming and put a smile on my face for a half hour. You can’t spend every episode beating up monsters and alien invaders to save the world. Sometimes you need to just sit down with a nice old lady and eat popcorn and watch some TV. 

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Ultraman Ep. 26 & 27: The Monster Highness

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Hajime Tsuburaya. Written by Tetsuo Kinjo and Bunzo Wakatsuki. Airdate Jan. 8 & 15, 1967.

The unofficial promise Ultraman makes to viewers is that it will deliver the thrills of giant monster movies in a TV-sized package. No episodes achieve this better than the first two-parter* in Ultra Series history. “The Monster Highness” is a VFX extravaganza that introduces the most famous kaiju in the franchise and smashes the thrill button as hard as it can with kinetic fights, heavy military action, and mass-scale urban destruction. Children all over Japan were on edge after the cliffhanger of Part 1 where Ultraman suffered a true defeat, ensuring that Part 2 would become one of the most viewed episodes of any Ultra show. 

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